A 12-year-old girl escaped from the juvenile center where she lived under the custody of the Community of Madrid. She went to her aunt, with whom she had already lived when she was little, but the only thing she found was hell in the barracks and the gates of the capital: forced to prostitute herself in exchange for cocaine and of hashish, she was raped for months. by eight adult men who gave him drugs and money. The Provincial Court of Madrid, as elDiario.es learned, has just sentenced her aunt and nine other people to sentences ranging from 6 to 27 years in prison for prostitution and drugging of the minor. They all knew she was “extremely vulnerable”, judges say, and “took advantage” of her until the girl “hit rock bottom” and asked her half-sister for help.
The judges declare it proven that the minor was 12 years old when, in October 2019, she left and did not return from the protected apartment where she lived openly. It was then that he turned to his maternal aunt, with whom he had already lived for several years, believing that she was “the only one who could help him”. What he found was a female drug addict who decided to consume the minor to obtain more cocaine and hashish.
It was this woman who pushed the victim into prostitution with adult men in exchange for drugs and small sums of money, sometimes in slums, other times in front of doors and even in garages and abandoned premises. , but also in his own home. parents. Her relative’s orders to prostitute themselves and obtain drugs sometimes came from her own grandmother’s phone number. The girl, who went to her aunt for help but, as the phrase goes, “ended up in her addictions”, went to her half-sister when she “hit rock bottom” and decided to ask for help. That day, says this witness, the 12-year-old minor came to see her with drugs and a pipe to consume.
The result was an investigation that began in the juvenile center from which she had escaped, passed into the hands of the Family and Feminine Care Unit (UFAM) of the National Police and ended in front of a court in the Plaza de Castilla with all the details of what had happened. He identified his aunt, her partner and eight other men and told both the police and the judge what had happened.
She disappeared before the trial – she couldn’t be summoned, which usually happens in this type of trial – but she reappeared by surprise to try to exonerate her aunt of everything that had happened. The judges believe that this attempt to leave his aunt out of the trial years later “is not credible” and that it responds to a “conflict of loyalties”. “Everything fits,” says the Provincial Court of Madrid. “The essential data of their testimonies coincide” and it is appropriate, they explain, to condemn both the woman and her companion, as well as the eight men who prostituted the minor for months.
Up to 27 years in prison
The sentence of the Madrid Provincial Court, which, as this newspaper learned, has already been appealed by all the accused, imposes sentences ranging from six years in prison to the aunt of the minor to 27 years in prison imposed on one of the men who raped. the victim. Offenses of corruption and prostitution of minors, sexual assault and drug trafficking which, in addition to prison sentences, are punishable by restraining orders and compensation of 60,000 euros that they owe together to pay to the victim.
The minor turned 13 after running away and everyone, according to the judges, “took advantage” of her “extremely vulnerable” situation. Some tried to argue in court that they did not know their ages, but the Madrid court explained that none of them could reasonably think they were over 16, a limit that could have free them from sexual crimes. “The appearance of the minor is clearly incompatible”, specifies the sentence, assuming that she was an adult.
Many also knew that he had escaped from a juvenile center. Only one of the accused was acquitted due to lack of evidence to identify him as one of those who prostituted the young girl in exchange for drugs. Several of the accused, according to the sentence, spent several years in pre-trial prison before the trial and have criminal records. The Community of Madrid, legal guardian of the minor, continued the lawsuit on behalf of the teenager.
Everyone, affirms the Madrid court, “knew perfectly the age of the minor”, who was 13 years old when she fled. “His personal, family and social situation made him an extremely vulnerable person and at psychosocial risk, with serious physical and emotional instability” from which everyone “benefited”. They were “aware” of this and the “general abuse she was subjected to” and “took advantage of it.” The victim, the judges explain, results in “intense emotional distress”.
